The invention in the field of safety devices for use in motor vehicles in general, and head-up display based safety devices for use in motor vehicles in particular.
Considerable efforts have been invested over the years to facilitate safe operation of driver operable devices during driving of motor vehicles.
Exemplary prior art references include:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,520 illustrates and describes a voice actuated control system for use in a motor vehicle. The control system includes a voice processing circuit and memory for storing data representing command words employed to perform control functions for vehicle accessories and for detecting spoken command words and providing data corresponding thereto. The control system also includes a display and control panel to selectively provide visual prompts to the operator and a manual control.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,502 illustrates and describes a control system for assisting the driver of a motor vehicle in selectively adjusting the various electronics components present within his vehicle. The control system includes a control panel containing a plurality of selection keys for selecting an adjustable feature from any component in his vehicle, a tactile control for adjusting the selected feature, and an electronics display for displaying information relevant to his operation of the various components. The display may be a head-up display for projecting a head-up display image onto the windshield.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,036 illustrates and describes a head-up display arrangement having touch sensors on control switches mounted inside a vehicle whereby, on detection of a user contact on a control switch, the image of the control switch which the driver contacted is displayed in such a manner as to distinguish it from the images of its neighbouring control switches which he did not contact, thereby enabling him to distinguish which control switch he contacted without having to turn his eyes downwards from the forward direction of his moving vehicle.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 07-307775 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,376) illustrates and describes the deployment of a touch panel on a front windshield duplicating the actual control panel of a mobile telephone handset to negate the need that a driver has to turn his eyes downwards away from the forward direction of his moving motor vehicle towards the control switches in order to locate the actual control switch that he wishes to depress.
The present invention is directed toward head-up display based safety devices for use in motor vehicles. The first aspect of the present invention is directed towards facilitating accurate driver operation of a driver operable device deployable in a motor vehicle without the need for a driver to turn his eyes downwards toward its control panel, thereby impeding his control over his motor vehicle. This can be achieved by either providing an icon representative of the position of a driver""s fingertip positioned for operating a driver operable device for superimposition on a head-up display image of the layout of its control panels, or by employing a speech recognition module to issue output control signals in accordance with spoken commands, thereby simplifying their operation in comparison to their conventional operation. The second aspect of the present invention is directed toward projecting a head-up display image of a driver""s rear field of vision including wireframe images of objects located therein.